NEW YORK – The individual found guilty of murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979 has been granted a new trial on Monday following a federal appeals court’s decision to overturn the guilty verdict in one of the country’s most infamous missing child cases.
Pedro Hernandez has been incarcerated, serving 25 years to life since his conviction in 2017. He was apprehended in 2012 after a prolonged and distressing search for answers to Etan’s disappearance on the first day he was permitted to walk alone to his school bus stop.
The appeals court nullified the conviction due to an issue with how the trial judge managed a jury note during Hernandez’s second trial in 2017. His initial trial resulted in a jury deadlock in 2015. The ruling states that the judges found the state trial court’s instruction to be not only “clearly wrong” but also “manifestly prejudicial.”
The court ordered his release unless the state gives him a new trial within a reasonable period to be set by the lower court judge.
Emily Tuttle, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney, said “We are reviewing the decision.”
Harvey Fishbein, an attorney for Hernandez, declined to comment when reached Monday by phone.
Hernandez was a teenager working at a convenience shop in Etan’s Manhattan neighborhood when the boy vanished.
Hernandez, who’s from Maple Shade, New Jersey, later confessed to choking Etan. But his lawyers said he was mentally ill and his confession was false.
Etan was among the first missing children pictured on milk cartons. His case contributed to an era of fear among American families, making anxious parents more protective of kids who many once allowed to roam and play unsupervised in their neighborhoods.
“Through this painful and utterly horrific real-life story, we came to realize how easily our children could disappear,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat who made a 2009 campaign promise to revisit the case if elected.
The Patzes’ advocacy helped to establish a national missing-children hotline and to make it easier for law enforcement agencies to share information about such cases. The May 25 anniversary of Etan’s disappearance became National Missing Children’s Day.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
